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Life at the Top
Life at the Top
	Original film poster
Directed by	Ted Kotcheff
Screenplay by	Mordecai Richler
Based on	Life at the Top; 1962 novel; by John Braine
Produced by	James Woolf
Starring	Laurence Harvey; Jean Simmons; Honor Blackman; Michael Craig; Donald Wolfit
Cinematography	Oswald Morris
Edited by	Derek York
Music by	Richard Addinsell
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	14 December 1965 (U.S.);
Running time	117 min
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Life at the Top is a 1965 British drama film, a production of Romulus Films released by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was by Mordecai Richler, based on the 1962 novel Life at the Top by John Braine, and is a sequel to the film Room at the Top (1959). It was directed by Ted Kotcheff and produced by James Woolf, with William Kirby as associate producer.^[1] The music score was by Richard Addinsell and the cinematography by Oswald Morris. The film's art director, Edward Marshall, received a 1966 BAFTA Award nomination.^[2]

The film stars Laurence Harvey, once again playing Joe Lampton, with Jean Simmons, Honor Blackman and Michael Craig. Four actors reprised their roles from Room at the Top: Harvey, Donald Wolfit, Ambrosine Phillpotts and Allan Cuthbertson.

Background

In Room at the Top, Joe Lampton's escape from his working-class background through his seduction of, and marriage to, the daughter of a wealthy mill owner had been portrayed.

Ten years on, Joe is living the dream of the successful young executive, complete with luxurious suburban house, white S-type Jaguar, and two young children. However, Joe's life is not the dream it appears to be.

Plot

Joe's father-in-law, Abe Brown, is the mayor of the town, and mill owner (Illingworths, Thornton Rd, Bradford). To Joe's disapproval, Abe insists on sending Joe's children to a private boarding school. Joe's son is also unhappy about this and when Joe invites the paper-boy in for a cup of tea, his son looks jealously on.

Joe goes to a sherry party with his wife, but would rather be in the pub. The party is in the huge house of his father-in-law. There he meets Norah.

Joe says goodbye to his son at the railway station. Later that night his in-laws, rather than himself, choose which carpet will be in Joe's house.

Joe no longer makes love to his wife and she is having an affair with Joe's married friend.

Joe goes to the Savoy Hotel in London with his friend for lunch with Tiffield. After Tiffield leaves they go to a strip show and the friend discusses dodgy business deals.

Joe meets George Aisgill and they discuss how Joe caused the death of his wife, but he has a new love - Norah.

Joe goes home wearing a Huckleberry Hound mask and finds signs of another man being in the house. He hears the other man in the bedroom with his wife but does not enter. He is sitting downstairs when they come down for a drink.

Cast

Laurence Harvey as Joe Lampton
Jean Simmons as Susan Lampton
Honor Blackman as Norah Hauxley
Michael Craig as Mark
Donald Wolfit as Abe Brown
Robert Morley as Tiffield
Margaret Johnston as Sybil
Ambrosine Phillpotts as Mrs. Brown
Allan Cuthbertson as George Aisgill
Paul A. Martin as Harry
Frances Cosslett as Barbara
Ian Shand as Hethersett
George A. Cooper as Graffham
Nigel Davenport as Mottram
Andrew Laurence as McLelland
Geoffrey Bayldon as Industrial Psychologist
Denis Quilley as Ben
David Oxley as Tim
David McKail as Oscar
Paul Whitsun-Jones as Keatley
Charles Lamb as Wincastle
Richard Leech as Doctor
Rex Deering as Lord Mayor
Harry Fowler as Magic Beans Man
Lola Morice as Mrs. Keatley

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Another thoroughly mean-spirited film of a kind which has been taking root in the British cinema over the past few years. ... This is social criticism run down and gone to seed. ... Dramatically speaking, the film is concocted out of updated versions of the oldest clichés of melodrama. ... The film is even further – and centrally – flawed by its ambiguous attitude to Joe himself. His vague stirrings of conscience and self-awareness are quickly drowned as soon as his own interests are at stake; but the film can't resist trying to have its cake and eat it, so that for the first half, his budding awareness of the hollowness of his way of life is allowed to assume almost heroic proportions, as though he really were crusading against the corruption and pretensions of his milieu. Ted Kotcheff, starting off inauspiciously with a couple of ugly dramatic zooms as Abe Brown presides over his boardroom, directs with heavy reliance on TV-style close shots, and the brusque editing style looks like a desperate attempt to give the film some sort of momentum. Laurence Harvey and Jean Simmons do their best with thankless roles, Donald Wolfit overacts enthusiastically, and the rest of the cast are inconspicuous, except for a marvellously languid Margaret Johnston, who relishes one wonderfully bitchy scene in which, aware that Susan has been sleeping with her husband, she tears the poor girl to pieces over the cocktail glasses."^[3]

References

^ "Life at the Top". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
^ "Edward Marshall". BAFTA. Retrieved 6 January 2012.
^ "Life at the Top". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 33 (384): 16. 1 January 1966 – via ProQuest.